shouting as the Thulians milled toward Juan. Faskin had turned as nearly white as his orange skin would permit. But he was the first to recover and start trying to get order, banging a wand against a coiled copper strip.
Bob had gasped with the others. “It means war at once,” he shouted to his father. “They’d forgive bombing the planet quicker.”
Proof of this was already coming. In the days Bob had been on Thule, he had never heard an outright expression of hatred toward the Federation, and he had believed that the Thulians had gotten over all personal violence. But now they were shouting like a pack of savages, a few crying for death to all men from the Federation.
The guards were better trained, though. They were moving in to protect the three in front of the president.
Bob suddenly touched Juan on the shoulder, and turned. He leaped toward the bank of machinery on the wall and began running along it. Some of the crowd that had begun to come in from other offices must have been confused by his Thulian clothes, for they drew back.
He was almost to the door when the loud-speaker on the ceiling broke into sound, in the voice of the president. “Stop! Robert Griffith, stop! Men, stop him!”
But the sound had confused them for just long enough. Bob found the door and was through it, bowling over two people who were just dashing up. He sped down the hall, and was surprised to find Juan behind him. A quick glance back showed guards pouring out of the big doors, with drawn guns.
There was no time to take the escalator. Bob blessed the Thulian who had installed a brass handrail beside it, and was on that and sliding downward before the guns went off. He landed hard, with Juan coming down against his back. That knocked the breath out of him but he had already grasped the next rail.
Thulian clothes were a nuisance. They offered no protection to his legs. But he hardly felt the burn as he slid down the third rail. He was getting the knack of it now, and blessing the times he had slid down the banister when he was a kid.
Bob threw out an arm to catch Juan at the bottom of the last railing, and then pulled the younger boy around a corner. “Have we got a chance to stop Jakes?” he asked.
Juan blinked and shook his head. Then he nodded quickly. “You want… Yes, maybe. We must stop him!”
Bob nodded, and leaped forward as he heard the pursuing guards coming down the escalator, adding their own speed to that of the machine. He glanced at the street and saw a man opening the door of one of the cars parked there. With a single bound, he was across the sidewalk and throwing the man out of his way. Surprise worked in his favor. The man stumbled and fell. Then Bob was inside at the driver’s seat, Juan yanking the door shut.
He’d seen how the cars worked, though he had never driven one. The power seemed to be electric, needing no starter. He pulled the steering bar back, twisting it a little. The car leaped to life and tore away from the sidewalk. It almost ran into the opposite one, but Bob yanked it back. For two blocks, he weaved about while the car gained speed; but it was enough like driving a car on Mars so as not to cause too much trouble. He got the hang of it almost at once, and settled down to making speed.
Juan reached forward and found a button. A high whistle came from the car. “Maybe this will clear the way for us,” he choked out. He was having his second reaction from the physical exertion, but was getting control of himself.
Bob nodded. The whistle did help. But it also told him that the sound he had heard before was pursuit by the guards, and from the extra volume of their whistles, they probably had bigger and faster cars.
In a way, he had an advantage. Thule wasn’t geared to violence, and would be more confused than in a Federation world, where crime was still fairly common. But it also meant that he probably couldn’t count on the Thulians finding and stopping Jakes in time.
Fortunately, he knew the way to Center Park. He cut into a narrower street suddenly, having seen that it. was clear. He swung around a corner, realizing that there were advantages to three-wheeled cars. This handled much more quickly than the ones he had known.
“Thank God you found me,” he told Juan. “I thought you were all on Simon’s side.”
Juan shook his head. “No. Not for this. I thought you might be on his side and try to help him.
It was to the president I was reporting.”
It was a good thing that Juan had seen the risk such a trick would bring, Bob thought. Otherwise, Jakes might have gotten away with it—if he hadn’t already done so. While the situation had seemed hopeless before, nothing could be worse than the results of injury to young Emo.
“What will you do, Bob?” Juan asked.
It was a question that Bob had been about to ask himself, and he realized he had no answer for it. He hadn’t had time to think. He’d acted on pure instinct, get there first, and depend on what he found for his actions. It still seemed the only thing to do.
The sudden spat of something against the top of the car warned him that the guards meant business. They had cut off their whistle and almost caught him. He jerked the car into another side street, almost running down two pedestrians. He’d have cracked up long before if there had been any real traffic on Thule. Then he began zigzagging toward Center Park, trying to keep out of the line of fire from the pursuing guards.
Then another thought occurred to him. “Those tractor beams that hold down the Icarius—maybe he can’t work them! The Thulians found the papers and substituted false ones for them!”
“I know of that,” Juan answered. “No, it won’t stop him. He found that the papers had been changed. That is why he decided he must escape now, instead of when he had planned.”
Bob was counting on the fact that Jakes would have gone as quietly as he could toward the park. With Emo taken along by force, he would probably have had to move along by stealth, picking subways with no one in them, and lurking at the furthest ends of platforms. It should have taken him quite a while to reach the park that way.
Something spattered against the car again, just missing Bob’s head. Then the car bucked, and began to twist sideways. One of the bullets—real bullets, not wax ones—must have punctured a tire.
He fought it to the curb, and had the door open as it stopped. There were several people standing there, and he’d picked the place because of that. He leaped out, with Juan behind him, and dashed through the group. They would keep the guards from firing—perhaps long enough.
The trick seemed to work, and they still had a chance. The park was only one block away, now. But Bob couldn’t head there directly. He swung around a corner, then dashed across the street. The guards would expect him to take the shortest way, which was straight ahead.
Therefore, the only thing to do was to go around the opposite block.
His legs began to ache, and Juan was having trouble keeping up with him. He slowed down, recognizing his mistake too late. He should have stopped running at once.
Juan caught his arm, and pulled him into the lobby of a building. “Underground, then up,” he gasped.
It would be better than going around the block. This time, they tried to look casual as they moved down the escalator. With their rate of breathing, it wouldn’t have passed close inspection, but there seemed to be no one around to look.
A couple of men were standing on the next lower level, but they didn’t seem to notice anything unusual as Bob and Juan passed them. Then ahead there was the “Up” escalator.
They rode up it, keeping their eyes peeled for a sign of trouble in the lobby they were entering. It seemed quiet, and the street beyond was free of guards.
This time, as they turned the corner, they were facing directly toward the park. Ahead, through the shrubbery, Bob could see the needle nose of the little Icarius. It was still not too late!
They glanced about, then crossed the street quickly, and were behind trees that would conceal them from any passing guard cars. By sticking to the smaller paths, they remained fairly inconspicuous.
But now guards were beginning to arrive. Through the thin shrubbery, Bob could see their cars drive up, and men pile out of them. He viewed them with both alarm and hope. They might be able to stop Jakes’s crazy plan.
The shrubbery thinned out for a space, and Bob and Juan had to find a way around. He remembered that there had been another of the trees with low-hanging branches to the north of the little ship, and began threading
